“Hell yeah, it matters. I can’t believe you passed up on that. Did you see her figure?” He shook his head, marveling. “I think Alaska fucked your brain up. You should have been all over her.”

Caleb just grinned. “So, you going to ask her out now?”

Now? He snorted and gestured at the cow, whose sides were heaving. She’d be going into labor any time now, if she wasn’t already. “You don’t think we’re a little busy right now?”

Caleb waved that off. “When things slow down. You going to ask her out then?”

“Dunno.” Common sense told him no, to let it go, but then he thought about her smile and that raspy chuckle, and common sense seemed very, very far away.

CHAPTER FIVE

Becca set her alarm for four in the morning and yawned her way through a drive into town. Nothing was open except for the doughnut shop, so she loaded up on a few dozen to go with all the food currently in the back of her car. The local grocery was more of a mom-and-pop sort of place, so it wouldn’t be open for a few hours yet, and the guys were low on a lot of things. She figured she could help out, make a healthy breakfast for Libby and Doc and the guys, help feed the puppies, and then be in town to open her salon . . . and catch a quick nap in one of the chairs if she had to.

When she pulled up to the ranch, the sky was purple at the edge of the mountains, the sun just thinking about rising. As she got out of the car, she noticed Hank was off the porch and at her side before she could even get to the back seat of the car. He was nice, she decided, gruffness notwithstanding. And he looked . . . really tired.

She decided it was a good thing she was there this morning.

“You look like you haven’t slept in four days,” Becca told him brightly as she handed him the doughnut boxes and then opened the back seat of the car.

He grunted a response, then paused for a minute. “Why are you back?”

“Because you guys are swamped, Doc probably needs help with the puppies, and you probably need help with Libby.” She beamed at him and then pulled out a reusable grocery bag full of stuff she’d yanked from her pantry.

Hank immediately took it from her arms.